Cultivating cultural humility, mutual understanding, and personal growth in the next generation of global health professionals

Resources

We have compiled a list of resources to help you continue your life-long cultural humility process. These resources include videos, comics, and articles spanning topics from telling your own story to the challenges of short-term global health work.

Cultural Humility Process

Cultural Humility: People, Principles, and Practices is an engaging 30-minute documentary that discusses the principles of cultural humility through personal stories and interviews. This is a great introduction to learn more about the components of cultural humility and how to engage in the process.

Implicit Bias

Project Implicit Bias Tests – Harvard University’s Project Implicit designed a multitude of Implicit Association Tests to measure the strength between associations and/ or stereotypes. The tests help to reveal associations that we make without consciously being aware of them.

Being Offended comic – A light-hearted illustration on the notion of being offended as portrayed through a powerful comic. The illustration demonstrates the ways in which jokes can sometimes reinforce harmful ideas about the world.

Telling Your Story

Human is a powerful documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand that shares the stories of people from around the world. Through brief interviews, Arthus-Betrand captures raw human emotion and shares stories of love, happiness, hatred, and violence to capture what it truly means to be human. Please note that some of the stories in this documentary might be difficult to hear.

Conversations on Race & Otherness – TreadBoldly created a digital storybook to engage in conversations around otherness in the context of race and identity. This is a great way to read stories of people that are both similar to and different from yourself.

Short-Term Global Health Work

First, Do No Harm: A Qualitative Research Documentary – This 45-minute documentary explores the ethics of medical voluntourism and short-term global health work. The producers interview various respondents across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas about the differences between intention and impact.

Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering – Author Judith Lasker evaluates not only the purpose but also the actual impact of medical missions and brigades. In her book, she addresses why the impact of these trips are rarely evaluated, whether volunteers help or hurt, and in what ways these missions can be conducted more effectively.

To Hell with Good Intentions is an address written by Monsignor Ivan Illich in 1968 to the attendees of the Conference on Inter-American Student Projects (CIASP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In it, Illich speaks candidly about the problematic nature of the “do-gooder” North American presence in Latin America and other parts of the world.

Representation in Global Health

The Dangers of a Single Story – In her TED talk, author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, shares a few personal stories about the highs and lows of growing up in a middle-class Nigerian family. In doing so, she explains that only telling either the positive or negative stories is to rob her of the many other stories and experiences that comprise her identity. In short, she explains that the single story is dangerous because it creates stereotypes, which leads people to believe that the single story is the only story.

Body Ritual of the Nacirema – American anthropologist Horace Miner details the life and livelihood of the exotic “Nacirema” population in his 1956 essay Body Ritual. Upon reading this, one should be prompted to compare and contrast the Nacirema’s rituals to one’s own.

Identity

Don’t ask me where I’m from, ask me where I’m a local – In her inspiring, must-watch Ted talk, writer Taiye Selasi challenges the traditional concepts of identity associated with nationality. She calls for people to recognize that people are “multi-local” and shaped by their experiences not necessarily their nationality, especially when they have a connection to multiple places.

Privilege and Identity

Cracking the Codes: Joy DeGruy, A Trip to the Grocery Store – In this short but powerful video, Joy DeGruy shares a story about how she experienced racism on her trip to a local grocery store and how her sister-in-law used her privilege to stand up for Joy and influence others. A must-watch video to understand how to use your privilege to create change in daily interactions (link to full documentary website below).

Letter to My Son – In this open letter, Between the World and Me author Ta-Nehisi Coates explains the legacy of destruction and disenfranchisement of the black body in the United States to his 15-year-old son. Yet, rather than doing so angrily or depressingly, Coates combines a narrative of brutal historical honesty with personal tales of his own upbringing and hopeful aspirations for his son’s future.

On a Plate: A Short Story About Privilege – After much thinking on the topics of inequality and privilege, Auckland-based illustrator Toby Morris came up with this comic. In it, he contrasts the lives of two characters (Richard and Paula) from childhood until adulthood as they navigate the challenges of life-based on their respective levels of privilege.

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack – Created by Peggy McIntosh, Associate Director of Wellesley’s College Center for Research on Women, is a brief list of experiences with privilege, which can further be attributed to privilege associated with skin color.

5 Tips for Being an Ally – Youtuber chescaleigh breaks down the necessary steps to being a supportive ally all in her own brief and quirky way.

4 Ways to Push Back Against Your Privilege – Mia McKenzie, creator of Black Girl Dangerous, illustrates the importance of moving beyond acknowledging one’s privilege and encouraging people to push back against their own privilege once they have recognized it.

“‘I’m Prejudiced,’ He Said. Then We Kept Talking.” is a Sunday Op-Ed piece written by Heather C. Mchgee, an African American activist, who describes her experience bridging the gap between multiple Americas. In particular, she focuses on the advice she gave to a caller, about how to engage with various minority groups.

Power and Privilege in Global Health

The Ghost Is the Machine: How can we visibilize the unseen norms and power of global health? is a comment article published by Lisa Forman in the International Journal of Health Policy and Management. Forman argues that the “‘unconscious’ and ‘unacknowledged’ nature of the norms, politics, and power that drive global health is a direct byproduct of the processes through which power operates, and a primary mechanism by which power sustains and reinforces itself.” She calls for the need for universities to take steps towards making global health research more equitable.

University of Toronto’s 2014 Global Health Summit focused on the intricate interplay between power, privilege, and politics. The contributing faculty cited here address how civic engagement, anti-corruption measures, and human rights frameworks can all be used to improve access to and the quality of healthcare delivery.

Scrambling for Africa? Universities and global health is a Lancet commentary written by Johanna Crane about the formation of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), the creation of the definition of global health, and the various dynamics of global health partnerships. Crane initiates a conversation about who really benefits from global health work and how partnerships are often inequitable.

Have a resource that might fit well on our list?
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